I want to add to a conversation between two friends on Twitter that I saw last night that occurred in response to this post by Britt.  What I have to say cannot be limited to 140 characters.  In fact, what I have to say is one of the longest posts I’ve ever written.

People from the subcontinent have a lot of parties.

A lot. The head count at these parties averages around fifty or sixty, at least in the circle my parents navigated.

If you were to walk into one of these parties as a person outside of our heritage, you might find it strange. You would find that all of the women are gathered in one place and all of the men are gathered in another. There’s no actual rule about it in my parent’s home, and the edges of that gender segregation are quite fuzzy with the occasional infiltrator wandering over to the other side for a quick hello.

You might assume that this has something to do with religion, but I think that you might be wrong. Many of my parents friends are Hindu, and I notice the same thing at their parties. Women in one area, men in another. To me, having grown up like this, it’s all perfectly normal.

As I read through the debate about Britt’s post, which touches upon men being included as speakers at women’s blogging conferences, I had one of those instances where I immediately saw a nugget of wisdom in my parent’s culture.  At first glance, segregation of women and men seems sexist. It certainly seems that way to the very American part of my mind, anyway. But the Pakistani part of my brain understands the merit of this type of socialization.

It’s about transmission.

When I sit at a party in my parent’s house, surrounded by women both younger and older than me, there is a subtext conversation that is taking place. Many of the women don’t even realize it’s happening. We are women teaching each other what it is to be a woman, as we each define it.

There are attempts to transmit values, ideology, and behavior. The more thoughtful women will notice this attempt at transmission. We will accept or reject the behavioral norms we are presented with at will. But, the point is, we have our very own space to experience that.

One woman will talk about how she’s having a tough time at work, another will talk about her husband’s good or bad behavior, another will mention she’s too afraid to get a mammogram, another will talk about how she always cooks with fresh ingredients, and, every now and then, one will emphatically state that she does not cook at all. Much, may I add, to the dismay to the women who are over fifty.  I’m not dismissing that many of those conversations among women in my parent’s home or their friends’ homes didn’t propagate patriarchy itself.  There was a lot of patriarchy flying around in the women’s section.

Still, patriarchy notwithstanding, these women discussed life in a way that they would never talk about if a man were there.  Too much, for these particular women, I think, was at stake.  Or maybe it was that they already knew what the men thought about life because so much of it centered around them, anyway.

The men, they sit on the other side of the house or room, and they don’t really pay attention to what the women are talking about.  It’s not, as you might imagine, that they don’t care.  They just know that this is their time to be with each other.

Nobody’s feelings are hurt.  Nobody questions why it’s this way.  Everyone is okay letting everyone else have their space.

I tried to readjust this social norm when I first got married.  When we would have our “desi” parties, I set up the space so everyone would sit together.  And you know what?  It was awkward.  I quickly went back to my parent’s way of doing things.  People can deny it all they want, but when a husband and wife are talking to you, they are a unit to a small degree, and this dynamic will inevitably inhibit your getting to know either one of them on a more intimate level.

We need our space so we can know each other and know ourselves.

In the context of conferences, I think it’s crucial for women to retain control over these metaphorical spaces.  I think a lot of well meaning men miss the point that women swim in the waters constructed by the male perspective every single moment of our lives.  I know it’s going to change, and that everyone (men and women) are working to change this, but the reality is still present.

The magazines and books we read, the shows we watch, and even the clothes we wear are constructed not necessarily by men, but most certainly keeping their point of view in mind.  These things are constructed in such a way that they inadvertently transmit ideas of “womanhood” to us.  So often, to me, at least, these notions of womanhood feel constricted and false.

It’s only during a girl’s nights out, a girlfriend getaway and, yes, conferences, do we enjoy the opportunity to thoughtfully concern ourselves with whether or not these ideals are appropriate for us.  In the real world, we simply do not have a space of our own.

We have to create that.

I think this applies to other groups that have what is considered “minority status.”  It always makes me chuckle when someone criticizes a “African American ThisAndThat Association” or the like for being exclusionary because I feel like they’re missing the point.  It’s not about exclusion, it’s about stepping away from realities which have inadvertently been constructed to benefit specific groups.

There is no bad guy here.  There is no evil white male we want to rid ourselves of.  There is just a society that has organically evolved based upon the power structures in place.  Men do not need to be offended by the idea that it’s a man’s world. In fact, I can safely say that men all over the world did not personally initiate the male dominated realities that we navigate.  Those were set in place hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago.  Furthermore, we are a fortunate generation of women to have so many men support our efforts to be financially and socially independent individuals.

On every level, I am a minority.  Whether I am here or in Pakistan, I will always be a minority.  And being a thoughtful and introspective person, I am painfully aware of how much of who I am supposed to be is dictated by those that outnumber, outpower, outclass or outmoney me.

Let me say it again, women wanting a space for themselves is not about exclusion.  It is not about not wanting men around.

Those of us who were socialized in those parties as young girls had a distinct reference point.  We didn’t have to start from scratch wondering what it was like to be a woman.  We grew up enveloped in a community of women of varied backgrounds, imparting what they felt was necessary wisdom about life.

Those other girls and I, we had a full glass when we started being women.  Even better, because we lived in this country, we could pour it out or drink as much of that water as we liked.  Some of us poured, some of us drank, many of us did both.

I think men should have conferences like this, too.  I think they should enjoy the benefit of being able to say to each other, This is manhood, this is masculinity, as I see it… what do you think it is?

In fact, I think it’s vital for them, given that they are, if you will, dealing with a whole new kind of woman.  They are also dealing with a media that is reinventing them slowly, but surely, in a way that I perceive to be decidedly negative.  If I see one more bumbling dad or goofy serial dating bachelor on TV, I think I’m going to scream.

We all need spaces of our very own.

Are BlogHer and Mom 2.0 even those spaces for women bloggers, though?  I don’t know.  There’s a lot of talk about empowerment in those circles, but much of it seems to be financially centered, focusing on sponsorship and the like.  Womanhood is not necessarily connected to the ability to make money with your blog.  In truth, I’m not sure how we, as women, can completely ignore men in that context.  For better or worse and for the most part, most corporations are run by men.  It’s difficult to imagine these conferences without them being involved to a great degree.

But.

And I can’t believe I’m saying this, men in these spaces should know their place.  They should exercise caution in terms of how involved they become.  They should realize that even if they’re the number one expert/speaker in a specific area, that they cannot understand fully the impact of that subject area as it relates to a woman and her personal experience in this world.  They should understand that it’s not just about the subject being discussed, it’s about the subject that is being discussed as it relates to womanhood.

They should realize that every group, including them, needs a space apart designated for understanding and discerning the aspects of identity that are being imposed upon them and to inevitably practice what feels right about their identity.

It’s nothing to be offended about.  It’s not about exclusion.  It’s not about… well, you.